Computer-assisted self-interviews were completed with a random sample of 163 unmarried Caucasian and African American men in a large metropolitan area. Almost a quarter (24.5%) of these men acknowledged committing an act since the age of 14 that met standard legal definitions of attempted or completed rape; an additional 39% had committed another type of sexual assault involving forced sexual contact or verbal coercion. An expanded version of the Malamuth et al.[1991] confluence model was examined using path analysis. The number of sexual assaults perpetrated by participants was associated with the direct or indirect effects of childhood sexual abuse, adolescent delinquency, alcohol problems, sexual dominance, positive attitudes about casual sexual relationships, and pressure from peers to engage in sexual relationships. Additionally, empathy buffered the relationship between sexual dominance and perpetration. The pattern of results was highly similar for African American and Caucasian men. The implications of these findings for sexual assault measurement are discussed and suggestions are made for alternative treatment programs.

Approximately 50% of sexual assaults involve alcohol. Researchers have documented situational characteristics that distinguish between sexual assaults that do and do not involve alcohol, but little attention has been paid to differences between the perpetrators of these two types of assault. In this study, discriminant function analysis was used to distinguish between college men (N = 356) who reported perpetrating sexual assault that involved alcohol, sexual assault that did not involve alcohol, or no sexual assault. Predictors of sexual assault perpetration that have been documented in past research differentiated nonperpetrators from both types of perpetrators. Perpetrators of sexual assaults that involved alcohol were in most ways similar to perpetrators of sexual assaults that did not, although they did differ on impulsivity, alcohol consumption in sexual situations, and beliefs about alcohol. These findings suggest mechanisms through which alcohol is involved in sexual assault that are relevant to theory and prevention.

Only a few studies have examined the characteristics of sexual assault based on the tactics used by the perpetrator. In this study we compared the experiences of women who were forced to engage in vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse due to verbal coercion, physical force, or intoxication. Random-digit dialing was used to obtain a sample of 272 single African American and Caucasian women between the ages of 18 and 49 from the Detroit metropolitan area. Participants completed a computer-assisted self-interview that asked detailed questions about a past sexual assault and their reactions to it. Among the 139 women who were forced to engage in vaginal, anal, or oral intercourse, sexual assaults that involved physical force produced the most severe negative outcomes. Situations that involved the woman being too intoxicated to resist differed from others primarily in terms of how much alcohol the man and woman consumed. Although all types of sexual assault were perceived as being at least moderately serious, verbally coerced assaults were on average perceived as being least serious. These findings suggest that the perpetrators' tactics affect women's responses to sexual assault.Legal definitions of sexual assault take into account different strategies that are used by perpetrators to force sex on unwilling victims. Definitions of rape always include physical force or threats of physical force as tactics to obtain sexual intercourse (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1995; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2001). Depending on the jurisdiction, intoxicated victims may also be considered rape victims. Some jurisdictions require that the intoxicant was administered without the victim's knowledge; however, most rape statutes focus on whether the victim was able to consent, with the underlying assumption that an unconscious or severely impaired victim cannot give consent (Gylys & McNamara, 1996; Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Antonia Abbey, Department of Community Medicine, Wayne State University, 4201 St. Antoine, Detroit, MI 48201. aabbey@med.wayne.edu. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Kramer, 1994). For the vast majority of victims, alcohol is the cause of this type of impairment, although illicit drugs and/or drugs slipped into the woman's drink (e.g., date rape drugs) are also sometimes the cause of temporary impairment (Bowker, 1978;McGregor, Lipowska, Shah, Du Mont, & De Siato, 2003;Stermac, Du Mont, & Dunn, 1998;Testa & Livingston, 1999). Verbally coercive strategies to obtain sexual intercourse are not usually included in definitions of rape, although they are typically addressed in other sexual assault statutes (Gylys & McNamara, 1996; Michigan Penal Code, 1990).Measures of sexual assault tend to mirror these legal definitions. The Sexual Experiences Survey (SES), which was developed by Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski (1987), is the most frequently used measure of sexual assault in academic research. It uses behaviorally specific items that...

This study extends past research by examining predictors of different types of sexual assault perpetration in a community sample. Computer-assisted self-interviews were conducted with a representative sample of 163 men in one large urban community. As hypothesized, many variables that are significant predictors of sexual assault perpetration in college student samples were also significant predictors in this sample, including empathy, adult attachment, attitudes about casual sex, sexual dominance, alcohol consumption in sexual situations, and peer approval of forced sex. For most measures, the strongest differences were between nonassaulters and men who committed acts that met standard legal definitions of rape. Men who committed forced sexual contact and verbal coercion tended to have scores that fell in between those of the other two groups. The implications of these findings are discussed for community-based sexual assault prevention programs.Keywords sexual assault; perpetration; etiology; community Only a handful of researchers have examined the predictors of sexual assault perpetration in community samples. Calhoun, Bernat, Clum, and Frame (1997) asked 65 young male residents of a Southern rural community who had been in an earlier study to complete their survey. Delinquency, hostility toward women, anger, dating frequency, alcohol consumption on dates, and sexual promiscuity were included as potential predictors of sexual assault perpetration. Hostility toward women and delinquency were the only two variables that significantly correlated with perpetration, and delinquency was the only significant predictor Permissions:http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Please address correspondence regarding this article to Antonia Abbey, Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 5057 Woodward, 7th floor, Detroit, MI, 48202; aabbey@wayne.edu. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript in multiple regression analyses. Senn, Desmarais, Verberg, and Wood (2000) conducted a mail survey with 195 male residents of a small Canadian city. Childhood abuse, adolescent peer pressure, adolescent promiscuity, hostility toward women, rape myth acceptance, discomfort expressing emotions with women, age, and social desirability were included as predictors in logistic regression analyses to distinguish between perpetrators and nonperpetrators. Adolescent promiscuity and discomfort expressing emotions with women were the only significant predictors. Knight and Sims-Knight (2003) surveyed 168 men who were members of a civic and social club in Philadelphia. In structural equation analyses, juvenile delinquency and aggressive sexual fantasies had significant direct effects on sexual assault perpetration.In contrast to the limited number of community surveys, there are numerous surveys of male college students who report that they have forced some type of unwanted sex on a woman. As compared to nonperpetrators, college student perpetrators have lower empathy, lower ad...